Tragedies Scar Coal History

Castle Gate Mine Explosion

On the morning of March 8, 1924, three explosions jarred the small mining community at Castle Gate. The blasts sent frightened women and children running toward the portal of Utah Fuel Company's No. 2 mines, located one mile east of the town.

The first shattering blast occurred about 7,000 feet from the mine entrance, trapping over 100 miners in the underground shafts. It blew the steel doors off the entrance, tearing their hinges out of concrete and hurling them
across the canyon where they were embedded in the mountainside. Heavy timbers from inside the mine were also thrown more than a mile across the canyon.

The disaster's three explosions and resulting afterdamp claimed the lives of 173 men, including one would-be rescuer. The youngest fatality was the 15 year old brother of another victim killed in the mining accident.

Relatives and friends of the entombed miners crowded the roadway leading to the mine's entrance. By March 11, over 100 bodies had been recovered, squelching any hope that remained and ending the grim suspense.

It took almost two weeks to remove all of the victims from the underground shafts, which were filled with deadly gas and flooding water. Rescue workers used horses to carry the dead from the mine.

On March 24, the hauntingly sad sound of "Taps" echoed from the bleak hillside above Castle Gate in memory of the county's dead miners. Sealed caskets were carried from the town's amusement halls, which had served as temporary morgues, and loaded onto trucks. Grieving survivors followed the funeral processions to cemeteries in Price, Helper and Castle Gate.

Written by Layne Miller - printed in the 1997 Energy a publication of
The Sun Advocate - Emery County Progress February, 1997

Andrew Hillas raised money to erect this monument in Price in honor of 29 Greek immigrant miners who died in the 1924 Castle Gate disaster. photograph by Rick Egan/the Salt Lake Tribune.

"There was no memory of them," he said of the young immigrants who perished far from the families they left behind, mostly on the island of Crete. "Those guys were poor, worked in horrible conditions, didn't have any family here. You just don't realize the hardships these people had to deal with, at least nothing I could comprehend."

So Hillas, who is himself of Greek descent, set out to rectify the situation. He spearheaded a drive within Price's Assumption Greek Orthodox Church that raised $1,700 to erect a stone monument bearing the names of the 29 who have spent the past 81 years in unmarked graves.

Today, two days before the anniversary of the explosion that killed 172 miners - Utah's second-worst mine disaster, exceeded only by the 1900 Winter Quarters explosion in which 200 died - the memorial will be blessed by Metropolitan Isaiah, the Greek Orthodox prelate over Utah and 13 other states, who is coming to Price for the 1:30 p.m. ceremony.

"I'm very grateful I can be part of it," Metropolitan Isaiah said, noting that the consecration coincides with his church's traditional pre-Lenten observances for departed souls. "We should remember those who came here and sacrificed their lives. It's a warm and touching thing that we care, not just for our friends but for strangers."

Fifty Greeks in all died that cold Saturday morning when three explosions ripped the mine. It took nearly a week for rescuers to clear the mine's tunnels of deadly carbon monoxide gas (costing one rescuer his life), extinguish fires spawned by the blasts and recover all of the bodies.

"Because there were so many, Assumption Church was too small so they had to use a public hall to hold all of the caskets," said Hillas, who became an amateur historian in researching the disaster.

As The Salt Lake Tribune reported March 13, 1924, "The funerals were conducted with the usual ritual by the Rev. Father Smyrnapoulas. The caskets were laid side by side across the center of the floor, and were completely covered with floral offerings evidencing the deep sympathy felt for the bereaved."

Assumption Church bought the plots where all but one of the Greek victims were buried (the 50th was interred at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City), out headstones were erected only for those with families in Utah and enough savings to pay for the markers. The rest slid into obscurity as time passed, generations died off and descendants moved away.

Enter Hillas.

On one of his walks through the cemetery, he encountered monument maker Bernie Morris, who said, "There's a Greek section where there's a lot of empty graves." that struck Hillas as odd, so he started comparing cemetery records to information he gathered about the victims in written publications and off the internet.

It kept sucking me in because I kept finding something out," said Hillas, citing the challenge of matching original Greek names, such as Stelios Papadoganakis and Demetrios Delakis, with their Anglicized versions - Steve Pappas and Jim Dallas.

"I found the names of all the Greeks who were killed and went back and tried to locate them. I walked and walked and walked," he said, "I located a certain number of them right away, but I kept trying because I didn't want to leave anybody out."

With help from cemetery secretary Brianna Welch, he eventually managed to account for every one.

Assumption Church officials readily endorsed his plan to memorialize those in unmarked graves. "This needed to be done," said the Very Rev. Anasthasios Emmert, church paster.

Hillas' diligent and painstaking effort also elicited praise from Salt Lake City resident Ted Sargetakis, who will attend today's observance with his family. His grandfather died in the Caste Gate disaster, leaving behind a widow, four children younger than 6 and a fifth on the way.

While his grandfather was not one of those buried without a headstone, Sargetakis said he gets the chills when thinking of the sacrifices made by all of the victims.

"They were practically indentured servants to the coal companies," he said. "They worked in the mines all day long for very little money, lived in company housing, were paid in company scrip, had to shop in the company store . . . We're where we are now as a result of their hard work."

And for some of the disaster victims to "almost fall through the cracks of history," he added, would have been an injustice - - one that Hillas has overturned.

"Hopefully, somewhere up there in heaven, they'll see they're being recognized and know he did it."

He found Strange Wheat - O.F. Grames, Price, found a few kernals of wheat in a cliff dweller's cave near Price and the kernels, as old as they appear to be; confound the experts because the kernels are growing and appear to be a better type than others.

O. F. Grames of Price isn't a farmer, but he does have a garden.

And from Mr. Grames garden has come some extraordinary wheat - and a headache for the experts.

The yield from Mr. Grames' crop was about half a teacup full. But its growing has stirred much interest in the lower end of Utah, and attracted the attention of several experts, notable among them Dr. T. L. Martin, dean of applied sciences at the Brigham Young University.

The wheat was grown from kernels found in a cliff dwelling's cave near Price, by a friend of Mr. Grames. He, according to Mr. Grames, found the kernels sealed into a small adobe container on a shelf in the cave.

Just to experiment, Mr. Grames says, he planted the wheat in his garden - and it grew. In fact, the stalks grew to a height of nearly five feet. The leaves, he noticed, were much broader and the grains nearly twice as long as wheat regularly grown in the area.

The wheat was grown last year and since that time, Mr. Grames has been undecided as to what to do with it. Local agricultural experts said it could not be as old as the cliff dwellers because wheat does not germinate after 20 to 25 years storage even under ideal conditions.

An official of the Agricultural Research Adminstration in Washington, D.C., told Mr. Grames to investigate the source of his controversial crop. he pointed out that wheat was unknown in America before the Spaniards arrived, then added, "Wheat will not grow after 20 to 25 years storage under the most ideal conditions."

The first positive reaction was obtained at BYU, when Keith O. Grames, a son, showed some of the "dweller's wheat" to agronomists there. They have requested more samples and the right to make an investigation.

"I don't know just what I'll do," Mr. Grames says, "I've been offered 50 cents a grain for it by a farmer in Price. But, I'd like to know more about it, especially where it came from - and why."

In a letter to Lyn Larson, Deseret News Farm Editor, Dr. Martin said an investigation is now being carried on at Brigham Young University on germination of similar wheat samples brought in by a Spanish Fork man. "What the results will be we cannot tell just yet," he said.

Dr. Martin said he had talked to a man from Price concerning the wheat belonging to Mr. Grames, "but we haven't received samples yet for investigation."

His understanding of the story, Dr. Martin said, was that the man had entered a cliff dwellers cave and the floor gave way. Underneath was a similar cavern, and it was there they found the wheat. "Apparently it has been sealed for many years," he wrote "and under such conditions it seems as though the vital of the seed remains intact. And when brought back again in a suitable germinating environment it is able to come out of its dormant state."

The climb in the HOURLY WAGE earnings in bituminous coal industry is reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as follows:

1934 average hourly

67.8 cents

1935 average hourly

74.7 cents

1936 average hourly

79.5 cents

1937 average hourly

86.2 cents

1938 (eight months)

87.6 cents

According to recent bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Institute, the 1937 - 1938 average hourly earnings in all manufacturing industries was 65 cents, and in the steel industry 82 cents. Bituminous coal, on the average hourly basis, tops them both.

Facts about Utah Fuel Co.

Coal mine wages have advanced greatly over the past years. As an example of this, take the case of day wages paid drivers. Authentic records show that these wages amounted to $3.25 per day in 1910 for 8 hours work, or 40.6 cents per hour. Today they amount to $6.44 for a 7 hour day, or 92 cents per hour. This is an increase of 126 per cent in the hourly rate or 51.4 cents. Contract rates for pick mining amounted to 45 cents per ton. (Somerset) in 1910, and they have risen 78 per cent since then, making the present rate 80 cents per ton.

Our mines observed the 8 hour day from 1896 to April, 1934, when the 7 hour day was instituted. No other major industry has maintained shorter working hours over this prolonged period.

Total expenses of producing coal mined by our company in 1910 amounted to 69 percent of our income. In 1938, total expenses consumed over 98 per cent of total income. This left 31 percent of income as gross profit in 1910, and less than 2 percent in 1938 - a vivid illustration of the fact that increased wages and other expenses have reduced profits close to the vanishing point. Ruinous competition from other comparatively laborless fuels has taken its toil in lessened ability to meet increased wages and other expenses.